The day started with a fab lesson from the guys that make Fabric Engine, a new procedural software for making tools for any 3D or 2D app, all accelerated on the GPU, very cool and exciting stuff; apparently it is the ice development team from the now defunct softimage. Lots of the big post houses have already adopted this software as an easier way of making tools and plugins.

Another great day at SIGGRAPH, we were up early for a meet and greet with educators in VFX, and discussions on how to teach VFX in the classroom and online. We then had a great panelled discussion on how to transition from a VFX Artist to a Teacher. The panel had some great Artists from ILM and top American Universities.

Escape’s Head of 3D Mark Spevick harbours a special passion for all things Houdini, and last week his skills were called for on the continent, and he ventured to iMasterArt in Turin taly to host a master class with a handful of other pros with experience in all areas of VFX, here are his notes from the trip!

For those of you who are interested learning more about the tools being used by the pros, here’s a great article from the fxguide crew sharing details of the recent evolution of Naiad into Bifröst. In my opinion, this is one of the most exciting developments to come from Autodesk in quite some time. Find out more here.

Everyone loves a bit of free education, and the internet is full to the brim with juicy info ready for you to soak that brain sponge of yours in. As opposed to the monotony of modern day schooling, you’ll often find that thanks to video streaming channels such as YouTube and Vimeo, information is often presented in an exciting and enthusiastic way.

Wowzers, check out this amazing camera system devised by the University of Tokyo, by using two small independent mirrors this camera is able to track and stabilize images at 1000 frames per second in full HD.

Yesterday the world was saddened by the news that Douglas Engelbart, famous for developing many basic computing technologies but most of all for inventing the computer mouse, has passed away at the age of 88.

The art world was moved last week, as we were informed of the death of iconic English animator, John David Wilson, at the age of 93. Wilson was a household name in the animation world and is well known for his work during the 50’s and 60’s.

Happy Friday everyone! Here’s a real interesting music video by Electro artist Yuksek, for his song "Off The Wall",

It's sure to get your toes tapping and your brain wondering at the video which is jam packed full of hand manipulated props, instruments and body parts that are brought together and combined with a mirror image.

I do love a good time lapse, and here’s one to feast your eyes upon! This amazing video was completely shot on Tokyo’s fully-automated Yurikamome transit system by an artist who goes by the user name darwinfish105

Made a 3d model lately? Try downloading some of these templates... then print them out (yes, onto paper) and with a good old fashioned combination of glue and patience, you too can make these awesome sculptures of the anatomy human body.

We’re fans of art all across the spectrum here at Escape, and these sculptures, created by Chinese artist Li Hongbo are rather mind boggling.

What appears upon first viewing, to be a set or porcelain sculpted heads, are actually a set of heads that are crafted out of thousands of layers of soft white paper,

A form that was originally used to make Chinese toys and decorations – book editor and designer Li Hongbo, became intrigued by their form and took the medium to another level. Check out this site for videos and snaps!

Just when you thought Hollywood couldn’t create VFX on a larger scale than Cloverfield or Transformers, this trailer is released, for ‘Pacific Rim’, and it really takes the biscuit!

Directed by the world renowned Guillermo del Toro, this is a tale of wait for it, giant robots made by humans, fighting giant monsters that have arrived through a time portal at the bottom of the sea - Sounds crazy right? Check out this trailer and if you plan to go to see this at the cinema, be sure to prepare yourself for some bone crushingly epic VFX sequences.

Forget microscopic hyper intelligent computer chips. modern technology? I laugh in the face of modern technology (for a moment anyway) - you will too after watching some of these mechanical toys from yesteryear, they are simply amazing

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory have introduced a new beast into the world of supercomputing. And as this new release is ten times more powerful than their previous world-leading system, this beast has been aptly named, Titan!

The Mill recently completed a commercial for US client Norfolk Southern, showcasing the transformative power of freight shipping. Being a rather stunning piece of work, you may be interested to know that this project was rendered primarily using Mental Ray, taking advantage of the newish unified sampling feature.

Ever felt like you've had enough of your computer, and wanted to make something a bit more creative with it? Check out this fantastic sculpture, which almost makes you want to break lots of computers just to have one!

Seems things are taking some interesting turns for the games industry. The word on the street is that the main players are opting for immersive 3d environments in games... allowing games to leave the confines of the TV. Both Microsoft and Sony have recently revealed their very different plans on how to achieve a totally immersive experience.

Want to see a demo of how computer games will look in the not too distant future? You are in luck. Here is a big breakdancing bunny courtesy of Samuel Lapere. Forgive us, the quality isn't great but it's still pretty phenomenal.

Special effects with computer graphics are all the rage recently. There are very few films produced these days without jaw dropping stunts courtesy of the digital department. But a lot of directors still prefer to shoot the real thing if they can as it nearly always looks better than the CG equivalent.

Yesterday Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of the children’s classic book Where The Wild Things Are, died. Famous through his writing and illustrating, Sendak published a number of children’s books, wrote and designed three animated stories and his final book “Bumble Ardy” was an adaption of a collaboration between Sendak and Jim Henson from kid’s TV favourite Sesame Street.

For Softimage fans out there, you may be glad to hear that the loyal community of Softimage users are regrouping. Under the new name Softimage Creatives (SiC), this is an independent user group based here in London. Following a user group meeting held last November, a discussion began to revive the community among Softimage users. Six industry professionals expressed their interest in helping make this a reality, and with the support of Escape Studios SiC London was born.

Have you ever wondered what would’ve happened if the script for Jaws was developed by Disney execs rather than Universal Pictures? Well, wonder no longer. For your entertainment on this rather gloomy Monday afternoon, I wanted to share this hilarious concept with you all. Found on YouTube earlier, take a look at a Disney’fied trailer of the 1975 classic. Spielberg possibly missed out on a golden opportunity here for a PG remake.

Here is an amazing chap called Michael Hansmeyer. Michael studied as an architect and programmer. He explores the use of algorithms and computation to generate architectural forms for artistic and commercial purposes.

The images of the forms that he creates are very intricate and beautiful...check them out.

There are so many useful apps on the market and I have found a couple of super useful and cool iPhone apps for the VFX artist and digital photographer. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing these with you in a series of blog posts.

Thanks to everyone who tuned onto our Houdini webinar today, what a great turnout! Seems that everyone found it really helpful especially as Houdini is such a hot topic at the moment. We didn’t have time to get around to all of your questions, so if there’s still something that you’d like to ask, don’t hesitate, just reply to this post and I’ll get back to you with as much information as possible. We’re also going to be posting a recording of the webinar on our website soon so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that. This is exactly the kind of stuff that we announce in our monthly newsletters so make sure you’re signed up to it.

Ever bored at home?... Why not stick a laser pointer inside your tumble drier and create your very own "atomic" washing applicance? OK, so you'll be doing so at your own risk, but judging from the images published here, the results are pretty impressive.

My cousin - David Itzcovitz - went to Israel last month and he took a series of photos, which he then processed to give this strange look. The process he mimicked in After Effects is called tilt-shift and is usually achieved by using a tilt-shift lens (lensbaby). This puts the focal plane at a strange angle to the film and as a result, you get this strange depth of field effect which makes big things seem like miniatures.

I stumbled upon a really good site the other day which sent me on a trip down memory lane. The site is called "Scanimate Central" and is basically a resource for anyone to read about how animations used to be made.

If you want to replicate the complexity of real world objects, you need to create materials that mimic them and this month's free tutorial will show you exactly how to do that. A car body is made up of lots of materials or layers, like metal and paint. If you want to create a rusty car you'll need more materials to create the common signs of deterioration. Many Maya users will be familiar with the 'layered shader' and 'layered texture' nodes. This tutorial asks what happens if you are using the MIA material and rendering in Mental Ray.

Redgiant - makers of the famous Magic Bullet software - are giving away a free plugin called Colorista. The plugin is a simple and elegant colour correcting plugin for AfterEffects, Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro.